⚠️ PSA: Whisper Trade Scam Using "Trash Rare" Bait (PoE2)

Scammers are targeting trades where "trash rare" items are listed for huge divine prices, but without a direct buyout (~price), forcing manual whisper trades.

They likely use bots or simple scrapers to scan trade listings for large price discrepancies (low-value rares, t5+ trash mods, listed for massive divine offers).
When activity appears on those trades, they strike:

• 🚨 Join the seller’s public hideout before or as buyers arrive (often low-level characters spamming trade invites).
  
• 🎭 Trade a similar-looking item first, hoping someone accepts without checking.
  
• 💸 Exploit confusion from multiple invites and manual whispers.
  

✅ How to Stay Safe

• Use direct buyout (~price) listings whenever possible.
  
• Avoid listing trash rares for inflated divine prices that are NOT Direct buyouts, scammers monitor these.
  
• If you must trade manually, host the trade in your own hideout or another location and verify character names + item stats before accepting.
  

I’ve personally seen this happen three times, and others have lost hundreds of Divines the same way.


This post was edited by jicz on Oct 4 2025 11:11am

this isn't new.. this has been around since d2. Just use your eyes and read the item its not hard. If you're selling divines you should be treating that junk rare as if it was the full value of the fg you are getting.. because without it you get nothing.

Also in order for this to even happen the seller (or buyer of divines) would have to be either involved or incredibly dumb to not realize multiple people are trying to trade with them for their junk rare. The second multiple people whisper you, its pretty obvious something is going on right?

✅ How to Stay Safe

1. Learn to use your eyes.

/e also I thought I recognized your name, I was going to bring up how someone got scammed using instant buyout.. and it was YOU lol. So.. only trade instant buyout and enjoy getting your actual good items fleeced.

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=106969123&f=250

This post was edited by Gamuwu on Oct 4 2025 02:43pm

The point of the PSA isn’t “people can’t read,” it’s that bots hit these listings fast and cause chaos with multiple trade windows and identical items. It may not be new to you, but it is to many others as evidenced by the scammer section -

Aside from this, My getting scammed (Then Refunded after Mod intervention) was due to me being lax so I do admit to that, but aside from that its a simple PSA, read it and move on if it doesn't help you?

what's even the scam?

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=106971777&f=126

Here is an example where someone lost hundreds of divs, so when the item gets listed and its not a direct buyout, bots/scammers can crawl the site for trash rares listed for high divs - TP instantly to the sellers hideout, and wait for another user to join the hideout (Typically the buyer) and trade them with identical item to receive the divs


https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=106971981&f=126 - example where it almost happened to me -

This post was edited by jicz on Oct 4 2025 03:26pm

buyer sends you a trade link, you enter their hideout and trade all your divs for a completely different item. This is no different than trading a high rune for an emerald socketed shako without hovering over the item and reading it.

the last comment in your thread had it right. The only way this is happening is by people joining your hideout without your permission through instant buyout tabs. If you turn them off nobody can get into your hideout during your trades, you can then turn them back on after.

Oh, Good to know - thanks

Thanks for info.

Yeah meta should be to use Instant buyouts only, If you Play trade and dont have merchant Tab what are you even doing...